12mm Epic Scale ECW: King's Lifeguard and Prince Rupert's Foot Regiment

 

A new project is afoot! Well actually quite a few regiments of 'foot'. Here are the first two Royalist regiments and we will be doing 14.

28mm SYW French: Tallyrand Cavalry

This is the last of the Horse regiments (so 9 in total) which, using French nomenclature, are classified as cavalerie légère or light Horse. I will also be doing two Dragoon regiments to finish off the left wing. The Talleyrand coat of arms was red with three golden lions rampant so I have given the musician a red coat.

 

28mm Perry Plastics FPW 1870: French Infantry

 

Here are the latest FPW French infantry from the Perrys. I have painted two battalions, the first and second of a notional Regiment. The Eagle and flag are carried by the second battalion. They are nice figures but the coats are so voluminous that it's quite hard to fit all the figures on a stadard plastic green base.

I posted a Prussian battalion back in August 2021 and actually I prefer the poses of those figures although the French uniform is quite pretty. The Perry uniform quide is, as always, useful but not detailed enough concerning the kepi so I have posted here a more detailed picture of the kepi from a reproduction company in France.

28mm SYW French: Noailles Cavalry

Another regiment of Horse done. This is the 8th out of the nine planned.

As for the musician, the house of Noailles' coat of arms was red-yellow so the coat might have been a combination of those two colours. Equally, it might not. There are no sources and this is an 'educated' guess.

 

28mm SYW French: Henrichemont Cavalry

 

I'm slowly plodding my way through these French cavalry regiments and this unit finishes my second brigade and the right wing.

28mm SYW French: Conti Cavalry

This was a 'Prince de Sang' Regiment as the Conde-Conti family was a part of the larger Bourbon family. They used their own livery of sand with light blue as per the infantry drummer picture attached.

This is the 6^th regiment finished for my French army.

 

28mm Celtic light cavary (metals) 1

 

Figures from Foundry.

28mm Hessians: 10/12 Rückersfeld Grenadiers

 

The last of the converged grenadier battalions.

28mm Hessians: IR12 Erbprinz

 

This regiment had 'Sang de Boeuf' coloured facings or Bull's blood, a very dark red. The lovely flags are from my friend Frederick Aubert, as are all my Hessian flags. Figures are largely from Black Hussar. I have almost finished the Hessian infantry. Just one grenadier battalion to go and the two battalions of IR7.

28mm Celtic archers

 

Metal figures from Wargames Foundry.

18mm Danish Livregiment Kyrasserer

 

Here I have used my favourite cavalry sculpts for the SYW – the Eureka figures designed by Mike Broadbent. They are big figures and are not compatible with other so-called 18mm cavalry ranges but I think they are perfectly in proportion with infantry. Cavalry horses from, say, Blue Moon, are ponies by comparison.

I have used Austrian cuirassiers which are close enough for Danish cuirassiers. All I have done is snip off the Imperial oat leaves that adorned their tricornes. They wear the cuirasse front-plate in black, light blue facings with leather coloured straps and gauntlets.

Four squadrons totalling four hundred men. A fine and elite regiment mounted on Holsteiner heavy horses which were in much demand throughout Europe.

18mm Danish Slesvigske infanteriregiment 1st Battalion

 

Another Danish battalion showing the regimental yellow flag I have created from the Vinkhuizen collection illustration. Figures are mostly 18mm Old Glory SYW Austrians.

You may wonder why some of the uniform details differ from the plate. The plate is dated 1761 so, besides the introduction of lapels in 1760, the coloured trousers disappeared (as they did in many other countries ) to be replaced with white or buff. So the unit in the 1740-50s still probably used blue trousers and waistcoats. The only other mystery concerns lace colour for the tricorne. This regiment had gold lace for officers and NCOs but did the other ranks have white or yellow. Sources differ on this but I have gone for white a la Prussian model rather than the Hanoverian model.

18mm Swedes Jonkopings 1st BTN

I have used Blue Moon figures here and they are not up to much frankly. Previously (on my blog on 22^nd May 2018) I showed the same unit but using the figures from an Italian company called Legio Heroica and they were much nicer. Sadly this company seems to have ceased trading although their website is running. So I will have to focus on the Danes and to that end I have ordered sufficient figures to do 16 battalions and a division of cavalry. Let's hope Legio Heroica can get it's act together.

The bottom picture shows figures from the Italian company.

 

28mm Celtic Cavalry unit 7 (final plastic unit)

 

18mm Danish Bornholmske infanteriregiment 1st Battalion

So I have finally got round to starting my Danes for my mini Swedish-Danish war of the mid 18th century. As for the rational of having these two fight each other in this timeframe, David Manley has done a 4 page PDF on the Danish army's participation in the WAS and there is an interesting observation on their involvement which was paid for by Britain and the Dutch: “Though never in action during the War of the Austrian Succession, the Danes were theoretically available for full involvement and were raring to go.” They were scattered in garrisons across Hanover but were called home in 1743 as the political situation in the Baltic area deteriorated. They were told to guard the Danish coast against possible Swedish incursions. “In the event the war was settled privately between the Swedes and Russians in far away Finland.” I'm assuming this did not happen and that the Swedes and Danes went to war (again).


Meanwhile this is the first battalion of the Bornholm regiment also know as the Marine regiment that lasted from 1672 to 2000. According to Wiki “It was considered a punishment to be mariner (Marine), and the recruitment included individuals who could not adapt to other services. This created a tradition of extremely hardy soldiers. Even among sailors, these soldiers were feared and hated. But one thing you could not deprive them was their fighting spirit. “

So here I'm playing around with base sizes and other issues as I have not fully decided the rules I want to use – either Konig Kreig or a variation of it.

Flags for the Danes are difficult too. There are plenty for the WSS and for the Napoleonic era but for the middle of the 18th century very few examples although the Vinkhuizen collection is useful. It's slightly too late as the figures have coat lapels which came in in the 1760s and I am aiming at the 1740-50s but the flag is interesting. For the Leib I have just used the beautiful WSS flag Dave Morfitt has just done.

Figures are 18mm Old Glory SYW Austrians.

 

28mm AWI: 2nd New York

 

Three hundred men of the second NY.

28mm Celtic cavalry unit 6